THIS WEEK IN COMMUNITIES & CLIMATE: DEC 11-15

By Wendee Nicole

December 15, 2017

We Are Still In

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We're back to rounding up the most important stories for each week that you might have missed. Local climate leaders, the latest in community climate action, and new climate research are all featured to highlight the good news coming out of cities. These are the top stories as we see it:

At the kickoff of the US Climate Action Center, during the 23rd Conference of the Parties (COP23) in Bonn, Germany, hundreds of US local leaders – including representatives of cities and states, tribes, businesses, and academia – showed the world that America is still committed to climate action, beyond the federal government. Several great articles reported on this event including:

The Guardian's piece, "US groups honouring Paris climate pledges despite Trump" leads with the powerful fact that these US local entities that have pledged action – 20 states and 50 large cities and more than 60 of the biggest businesses in the country – are equivalent to the world’s third biggest economy, after the US and China, amounting to $10 Trillion.

C40 Cities is featuring #Women4Climate on their Instagram account for the next week, highlighting climate heroines fighting climate change though journalism, research, leadership and more.

Last but not least, some positive news about influencing people on climate change – just in time for those big holiday gatherings. It turns out that political conservatives (as well as others) will update their views when shown facts about the scientific consensus on climate science. Scientists are still a trusted group by all parties, and the pressure to confirm to norms can still win the day - and maybe the world. Pacific Standard covered the study that recently came out in the journal Nature Human Behaviour in their article "Showing Conservatives The Scientific Consensus On Climate Change Can Shift Their Views On The Issue."